


Ares

by keithyourpal



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Body Modification, Choking, Collars, Galra Keith (Voltron), M/M, Psychic Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 04:21:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8518294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keithyourpal/pseuds/keithyourpal
Summary: Half a year into his imprisonment, Shiro is sponsored by a member of the Galra royal family.





	

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  As the premise and tags imply, Shiro is not in for a good time. Please be mindful of that if you choose to read.

Shiro’s forehead slammed into the smooth surface of the floor. One of the guards held him down by the neck, his gauntlet rigid and heavy at the back of Shiro’s head. As he choked, a wad of blood-laced saliva dribbled over his bottom lip. His previous victories had all only earned him thunderous applause and an unceremonious shove back into his cell. 

This was different; his treatment by the guards was no less rough, but in the moment when his head was still up high enough for him to look around, he could see this was a receiving room of sorts, dark and cramped like a cell but much cleaner and more polished. At the far wall, a single hard bench was set between two sconces emitting diffused violet light.

He kept his head down even when the guards snapped to attention. More than anything he had learned that the Galra enjoyed making their captives squirm. Outside of a spectator’s ring, away from an audience, he had no way to gauge his enemy, no way to prepare himself or fight back.

His only meager hope was that he won, he had won so many matches, and they had to have a higher purpose, a reason to continue keeping him alive. In the months (and he could only estimate that it had been months, and not years) since his capture, Shiro had given up on his pride, on anything other than the desperation to do whatever it would take to save his own life, even at the cost of another.

He was ashamed to be here. Yet, if he gave up now then all that struggling would be for nothing. With that thought burning clearly in mind, he kept his head down until a guard tugged sharply on the chain around his neck.

A third Galra had joined them and was perched on the edge of bench. He was smaller than guards, lean and youthful, with long white hair tumbling past the cape of his black robes, which skirted just above the floor. With a small motion of one gloved hand he dismissed the guards. The door creaked shut heavily behind Shiro at their retreat.

The young Galra had a coy smirk as he touched his fingertips to his chin, his vivid amber eyes raking over Shiro’s battered form. “Perfect,” he said in a low, soft voice when he was done. “You are perfect, Champion.”

Shiro swallowed the urge to correct him. He was not a champion, not on anyone else’s behalf, and certainly not on a Galra’s.

The Galra smiled. “Would you prefer I call you ‘Shiro’ then? Or how about . . .” Something in his voice changed, his timbre just a touch different, more human. “. . . Takashi?”

“Don’t call me that,” Shiro spat out, staring down at the pool of blood on the tile in front of him. His arms were still bound behind his back, the chain still around his neck, but nothing kept him in place except for his own fragile self-restraint. Whoever this Galra was, if the guards followed his orders and left him alone with the champion, he must be able to hold his own. Even if that was not the case, Shiro was so battered from his recent match that he knew his odds of winning would be slim either way. 

His breathing grew more erratic as the Galra’s light, cat-like footsteps fell near, until Shiro could see the tip of his boots. One smashed up into his jaw, knocking his head back at the same time the Galra leaned down to grab hold of his hair. Shiro bit into his tongue, and more bloody spit gushed out from the corner of his mouth. The Galra smiled down at him with a cruel humor in his eyes that did not match his soft voice. “You are so perfect, Takashi.”

Stop it, Shiro wanted to say, unable to do anything other than gasp around his own tongue, because no one called him “Takashi” outside of his family, and with that voice and that face Shiro felt like he was hallucinating, like the distinction between fantasy and reality had lost all meaning.

“Good,” the Galra said as Shiro heaved and trembled underneath, forcing himself to stay in place. He smoothed back Shiro’s fringe to look him in the eyes briefly, then ran his hand over the crown of his head where debris nicked him earlier, and down his nape where the guard had grabbed him, to the bump of his vertebra. No one had made physical contact with Shiro so gently since the day of the launch, and the conflicting desires to reject and welcome it felt like they would rend him in two.

A gloved thumb dipped into the corner of his scraped lips and pried his jaw open. The faintest point of a covered claw curved down from the Galra’s thumb, pricking at Shiro’s tender tongue, holding it still as it reacted involuntarily. Drool streamed uninhibited down Shiro’s chin now, and he wanted to look at anything other than the thin face above him, rimmed with shimmery white bangs cut in an almost-familiar way. The Galra’s own mouth was open just enough for Shiro to see the tip of his tongue was clamped between his pointed teeth in suppressed delight.

The Galra withdrew his hands, straightened up, and took a step back, turning sharply. On cue the doors groan opened again, and Shiro was brought roughly to his knees. The shackle around his neck was unlocked, then the guard hoisted him up to his feet by his armpits and pushed him toward the small Galra. Shiro steadied himself. His arms and shoulders burned. The small Galra looked back with a flick of his long hair, a hand at his chest, holding onto something under his robe. 

Shiro waited before taking a few uncertain steps toward him. The Galra blinked when Shiro was an arm’s reach away, bringing him to a halt, and fully withdrew the object.

He had another collar, this one made of what looked to be the Galra equivalent of leather, deep purple in color with a small white crystal beset in its center directly opposite from the clasp. Shiro reared back, reminding himself belatedly to hold still, keep your head down, you can’t lose here.  
The Galra flashed a smile, and handed it to him.

Shiro took the collar with clammy, shaking hands. As he slid it around his own neck the crystal pressed into the underside of his Adam’s apple with a warm, pulsating energy. The collar itself was much lighter than the shackle, and yet weighed down on him as soon as he closed the clasp.

“Follow me,” the Galra said, raising a hand before striding off to the unassuming entrance he’d come through. The guards brought themselves to attention and saluted as Shiro followed him into a dark tunnel. The spectators’ noise hummed through the walls all around them, an echo of the jeers that haunted Shiro as he lay in his own cell for a few hours of respite before and after his matches. 

This was different. Here he was alone in the darkness with only the faint light of his crystal and the quickly fading footsteps of the Galra to guide him. He tripped and scraped his shoulder on the wall.

His body ached as he pressed onward, the footsteps going silent before too long. After a moment of pitch black, a pinprick of light appeared, which bathed him in a gradual warmth as he approached.

He hesitated, holding up a hand and squinting against the brightness.

“Come,” the Galra’s disembodied voice commanded. Blind and weary, Shiro obeyed.


End file.
